News / Groups to decide on FD status

Each commissioning group will be free to decide whether their chief financial officer is a full member of its governing body, the Department of Health has said.

In its response to the Commons health committee’s April report on commissioning (pictured), the Department explained that each group will nominate an accountable officer, who will be appointed by the NHS Commissioning Board.

Each will have a governing body that will ensure decisions about patient services and the use of taxpayers’ money are made in an open, transparent and accountable way.

The accountable officer will be a full member of the governing body, responsible for ensuring that the commissioning group complies with its financial obligations and exercises its functions in a way that provides good value for money.

Each commissioning group should also have a chief financial officer and the health committee recommended they be a full board member. But the response stated: ‘We intend that the group should decide whether or not this officer should be a full member of the governing body.’

The HFMA intends to lobby the Department to reverse the decision. The association’s president Suzanne Tracey said it would be a ‘retrograde step’.

She believed most of the new commissioning groups would recognise the importance of having the chief finance officer as a full board member. But Ms Tracey added: ‘Implying that financial control and management need not be at the heart of a commissioning group’s leadership team could undermine the potential for success.’